What BIG Pharma is doing and how to leverage proven ideas
I’m going to walk you through some of the things that Big Pharma is doing now and show you how to leverage these proven web design ideas for your own unbranded web presence. We’re going to go through and decode a little bit about what some of these websites are doing, what makes them successful, and why an unbranded pharma web design strategy is something to consider for your own brand.
There are four pillars of success that we find when working with unbranded web presences and the strategy in general.
The Four Pillars of a Successful Unbranded Pharma Web Strategy
Branding is ultra important, as you well know. Coming up with a clever name for the web presence is something that will set your brand apart in the search results. And ideally, that name should be a condition-based name and something that somebody will be actually searching for on Google in order to find this resource. So, we love the condition-focused type URLs and their names, and we’ll show you some examples of exactly what that is and why it’s so important to consider a clever condition-based name for the domain and web presence.
The next thing on this list is persona development.
It’s really important to understand the type of user that’s coming to this unbranded pharma website and what their end goal is.
Is it a patient? Is it a caregiver? Or is it a physician?
Some of these unbranded pharma web presences are geared towards multiple audiences. And then, some are broken out appropriately for different audiences. Others are just for the caregiver or the patient specifically. So, understanding the end goal and the target audience helps direct their experience.
The third is website design. We want to take the right type of user through the correct path with an understanding as to what we want them to do once they get there. So, building a website or microsite is more important than pretty pictures. The experience has to be tailored to the needs of the user while achieving the goal of the brand and considering what opportunities are there to actually capture their information.
Some options are newsletter sign-ups, quizzes, or downloadable? options. We’ll show you some examples of those.
The fourth pillar is marketing. Driving awareness to an unbranded pharma website can be tricky. There are definitely regulations as to what you can do in the pharma world. The reason why brands build unbranded web presences is that there’s more opportunity to leverage marketing channels to drive awareness to the brand. With clever targeting and headlines, we can drive brand awareness and get users to create an action-based plan based on the desired outcome we pre-engineer.
Example 1: Eczema Exposed
The first URL we’re going to talk about is Eczema Exposed. It’s a great domain name because it’s something that is searched on eczema-related search queries.
Inside you’ll see there’s subtle branding from the pharma brands. You’ll understand that parents of children and females are being targeted. The calls to action throughout are newsletter sign-ups. And, they have some doctor-patient discussion guides which are really clever. Engagement is super important nowadays on a web presence because the longer you stay on a website based on a search query, the higher Google will rank you for that specific search query.
So, getting users to stay on your website, looking at interactive materials, videos, interactive quizzes, even patient stories via video or testimonial style format are great ways to get people to stay on your website.
Understanding Eczema is the first link on this page. And what I really like about it is it does exactly that. It helps you understand what it is.
There are some videos of real humans and you can watch their stories. It explains exactly how the process of inflammation happens when somebody is scratching the itch and how the skin gets damaged. And then underneath here, we have a little quick quiz. So as you go through, you can select the true or false answer and it tells you right away if it’s correct or not. But it’s a great way to keep people on the web presence and keep them engaged.
You can also sign up for the newsletter and understand a little bit more about this, which is done through a drip-email campaign.
They’re asking for some basic information which then gets sent right over to Sanofi for them to market to users.
Up top, you can see they have an area for health care professionals. This takes you off the website to a different unbranded web presence. But Eczema Exposed is a good unbranded web resource for a patient with also some materials for them to communicate effectively to their doctor. This is where you can see they have the child-caregiver doctor discussion guide and then they have the adult-doctor discussion guide.
All these resources link to third parties. And then, they have this little doc finder where you can look for a doctor by putting in your town This will take you off-site onto another web presence where you can see more.
So, that’s pretty much it. I love the domain name and the brand name of this website. What I also liked is some of the creative that they were using to drive traffic to that web presence.
This was animation that was run possibly in the Google network and served as banner ads. But it was a revealing animation here, exposing the first piece of creative through the last. It’s a great way to drive traffic to the website.
Example 2: Arthritis.com
The next web presence we’re going to look at is arthritis.com. This one is done by Pfizer and it’s targeting basically anybody with arthritis.
There are calls to action throughout, via their newsletter, sign-ups, and doctor-patient discussion guides, which seem to be pretty popular.
The engagement is an interactive worksheet on this web presence.
The site is done nicely. We like how this constantly changes up on the top. If you give it a little time, you can see it animate out. It’ll refresh. They have the doctor discussion tips, and then they have a symptom tracker, which I thought was really clever.
There’s RA vs OA. And they promote the professionals that are involved in this as well, their editorial board. I found this one to be the most fun and interactive.
There are a series of questions that, as you answer, you’ll see how they lead you through this quiz. Essentially, it helps you to learn more about your own condition and then provide you are provided a report at the end.
There is the choice to download a PDF of the results or have the results emailed. That email can then be used for marketing, as long as they’re opting in after. I thought that was super clever. Let’s now go back to the home page of it.
There’s advice about talking to your doctor again. There’s some more doctor download discussion tips here. You can see they have registration information here to sign up for that newsletter as well. It’s just a different call to action, which gets you to sign up a different way, and then there are contact forms throughout the website.
Example 3: Science of Migraine
The next unbranded pharma web presence we’re going to talk about is Scienceofmigraine.com. This is an Amgen Novartis joint initiative here and is an HCP focus.
Their calls to action are newsletter sign-ups and contact forms on every single page.
Their engagement is a resource library, videos, and they have diagrams, which is pretty clever.
Their web presence nicely designed. And, the survey is great because it helps them understand exactly who is coming to the website so they can use this information to either modify the content or, in phase two or phase three, do a different type of build that’s geared towards that kind of a persona.
So, again, this is for an HCP. The information that they’re talking about here is a lot more scientific. And the sign-up form is on every single page, with calls to action all over the place. There is also a scaled-down one where you sign up and just put in your information for more information.
There are different types of resources and downloadable forms where they have the ability to capture information and then use that information for marketing to these HCPs through this web presence. And, there are some links to outbound websites as well.
It’s a great name, and I love the branding of it. I thought it did an effective job.
And now we’ll show you how they drove traffic.
They had a series of ads. So these first three, you see the two top left and bottom left one with the same woman in it were all part of one animated sequence. And then the bottom right one was another ad that was running, all within the Google network. It’s an opportunity to drive more traffic to that unbranded web presence, get more awareness for HCPs, and learn that there is a resource out there for them for this specific condition.
For more information on how we might be able to help you with your unbranded web presence, please call us at 732-706-5555!